Howling V: The Rebirth

First off let me just say that I am a big fan of all of these types of movies. Secondly I love this movie to date matter of fact I watched it again last night. So here it is in a nutshell: 1) None of the people on the bus are the werewolf, for they hit one on there way to the castle, what else would it have been right? 2)All of them have that special little trait, and there trying to see who will show there true-self first, sort of a gauntlet if you wish. 3) The Count and caretakers must have already known something cause it was all set up to begin with, including all of the torches being lit in all of the tunnels and what not. Also there was someone chained up in the cellar in Rare form so... yeah Ill leave it at that. Finally I believe that the actors and actresses especially did a wonderful job in the movie. Something perplexes me though was it just me or did some of the actress's eyes look a little funny, ya know, bright and glowing...anna & mary lou. I could write another one if anyone has anything to add :)

Although most reviewers rate this low, I think this is a horror gem! It is loaded with atmosphere, having been filmed in a real middle-European castle. A group of travelers are stranded there during a blizzard at night as a werewolf picks them off one by one. Can they find out who the werewolf is in time? There are great scenes with the cast creeping around in catacombs. Although the monster is hardly seen, it leaves more for the imagination like the horror classics of old. Horror fans should not miss this one! AAAAA++++

Count Istvan invites twelve people to a spooky castle that was locked up for more than 500 years. In the evening a blizzard encases the dark ruins and traps the twelve visitors inside. Suddenly people disappear. A wild animal seems to walk abroad. Is it a werewolf like the legend suggests? Or is it just the count playing a sadistic game? A life-threatening cat-and-mouse game ensues. The Howling franchise is a cinematic trainwreck of epic proportions. Parts II and III are crackbrained trash festivals, while Part IV is a dreary remake of Part I, which isn't that great to begin with. Within this landscape of dilettantism, "Howling V: The Rebirth" is a breath of fresh air. It's actually a quite decent flick, mixing slasher elements with a murder mystery plot. The script has some engaging twists and turns, although it ultimately is pretty predictable. The twelve characters aren't fleshed out enough. They're sketchy stereotypes at best. There's a smart-alec professor, a femme fatale, a goofy never-do-well, an aloof pretty boy and a painfully naive fool of woman. You'll have a hard time caring about even one of these characters, which hurts the suspense a lot. There are some cool jump scares, but other than that, the horror elements are pretty tame. In fact, we barely see any werewolfs. Most of the action happens off screen. Director Neal Sundstrom emphasises mystery over gore, which is fine with me. (I'm not sure if I want to see any more Howling werewolfs, at this point.) The castle has an eerie look to it and the soundtrack is amazing. Whenever one of the visitors gets murdered, there's an epic music cue: a choir singing something like "Sanctus! Sanctuuus!" After the second time, I sang along cheerfully. Great stuff. Phil Davis does a good job portraying the humorless Count Istvan. Otherwise, the acting is subpar at best. Elizabeth Shé as the starry-eyed Marylou is the queen of underacting: "No. This is not real. Please say it's not real. (Yawn.)" "Howling V" is by far the best of the Howling sequels. (Hey, it only took them four tries.) But that's not saying much. Check it out if you want to watch a decent, yet clumsy werewolf murder mystery.

There is one shot in The Howling 5: Rebirth I will never forget. This is a werewolf movie with less than five minutes of on screen hominid animal attacks. Whenever we do see the beast, the director places the camera on distinct parts its body. The first time this happens, we see its jaws open. The screen is entirely dark. Out of the mouth of badness comes an awful, irrelevant sequel. This is actually a slasher pic with fur. Read the setup. A diverse group of adults is trapped in a Hungarian castle and is stalked individually by a werewolf. Change the words in italics to teenagers, house, and crazy person for your usual genre effort. The movie came out in 1989 near the end of the slasher craze, and being the cash grab that it is, doesn't distinguish itself in any way. This is an improvement over part 4…barely. At least it rips off a sub-genre and not another film in its own series. At least, unlike the last movie, we get some cool scenery to enjoy. This movie takes place in Europe and looks like it was filmed in an old building. I spent a lot of time looking around at the sets or snow-covered ground in between boring segments. The movie is self-aware of its awfulness and provides a musical jolt whenever a werewolf attack is coming. Some refrain from a song by some group called The Factory plays every single time. An extended version plays over the opening credits. I can't determine if the director chose to do this because he deluded himself into thinking it would be scary or if The Factory got a lot of free advertising. The song is stylistically similar to a Beethoven opera and contrasts nicely with the phony "attack" sequences where people are touched by the wolf. A group of international tourists have won a visit to a castle where in 1489 a wealthy family committed mass suicide. A child was smuggled out, and the tourists are its descendants. The family was cursed with lycanthropy and attempted to save the world by preventing its proliferation. If only they could have saved us from watching this play out. That smuggled kid was a werewolf who passed his genes onto the rest of the world or at least the twenty or so people in this movie. Only one of them is actually a werewolf whose powers are unleashed when in the castle. There's a bit of mystery as to who the villain is at first. The guy with the heavy Eastern European accent just HAS to be the antagonist. We are stupefied, of course, until one of the characters disappears whenever the group goes actively looking for the werewolf in a darkened basement twice. Only one of the tourists, by the name of Ray, escapes. The movie is too pedestrian to recommend even to genre fans. People are willing to overlook its dearth of creativity under the strange idea that its slight variation of slasher staples is OK. There is a nice twist to the ending where two men argue over which one of them is the werewolf while ignoring a young girl who is rarely seen on screen. I just wish we saw the werewolf get them. The girl, Mary Lou, makes a cameo in the much-better follow up to this film: The Howling 6: The Freaks. She is also the central antagonist of part 7. Not Recommended

The Howling series doesn't have much of a great reputation, each one being different in style and tone with no real connection to each other. Although the second film does touch upon the original in some sort plot tie. I never been a huge fan of the original and the sequels that I've seen (2, 3 and 4) are simply inferior. So I went into the filth venture (another straight-to-video fare) expecting less, but actually came away mildly enjoying it. In some regards I enjoyed it more than the original… that's not to say it's better than that film. But I was pleasantly surprised by it. A group of strangers selected from around the world are invited by an aristocratic count to the re-opening of a castle in Budapest that hasn't seen light for over 500 years due to its terrible past. Unknowingly to them everyone in the group bears an identical birthmark that links them to the castle's terrible past. The low-budget, but sturdy "The Howling V: The Re-Birth" plays around with the ten little Indians murder mystery formula, but the killer is no ordinary being but actually a werewolf. The revelation might not come as a surprise, as there are certain clues scattered about pointing to the one in question, but it still remains cleverly penned (it elaborately plotted) and unpredictable in what order the guests become fresh meat. The performances are down-to-earth by the likes of Stephanie Faulkner, Mark Sivertsen and William Shockley, as there is an odd assortment of characters where a lot of time can be spent on trivial dialogue exchanges. However it stays gripping, crowned with mystery and danger where the remote Gothic castle setting (modern day Budapest) is dark and dank. The ominously gloomy and taut atmosphere works, as they keep to what its budget allows it and this means making sure the beast mostly stays in the shadows. Lurking or stalking its prey. Director Neal Sundstrom favours suggestively brooding handling. We don't get much of a real look, as there's plenty of rapid moving POV shots, minor flashes and off-screen attacks. What we did see of it didn't look the greatest, but it's acceptable. Moments do strike up some eerie spells and suspenseful build-ups before it deliver the shocks. It's helped by competently sweeping camera-work and a foreboding music score. Entertaining superstitious whodunit b-grade hokum

With this one, I've finally watched all the HOWLING sequels. I can see why people actually like this 5th installment, as it does try to do something else with the werewolf concept. It plays out like a whodunit-slasher, set on one imaginative location (a Hungarian castle setting). Yet still, when you have to judge it on its own terms and nature, it falls short at the end of the ride. There's too little of the mystery-plot to enjoy (not enough red herrings, no twists worth mentioning and the killer/werewolf could just be anybody really - it's no fun to think along with the plot as there is not much to think about and no real puzzles to be solved). All the actual kills sadly happen off-screen (only ripped throats are shown after the events). We don't get to see much of the werewolf (only some brief glimpses during the attacks) and the film does not feature a transformation-scene (which I was so hoping for to happen during the conclusion). It's even lacking a decent climax of sorts. The acting is strictly so-so, provided by a cast compiled out of unfamiliar names (at least to me they were). The small bits of humor injected into some of the dialogues, didn't really pay off. Fortunately they weren't too distracting. As far as cinematography goes, I only found the special effect shots, of the exterior of the castle during a snow storm, to be enjoyable. The interior sets of the castle chambers, dungeons and corridors looked a little cheap. But that can be forgiven, due to the movie's low budget. It's an amusing watch and certainly not the worst or most idiotic HOWLING sequel, yes, but nothing more. HOWLING V might have drawn a lot of influences from that other 'guess the werewolf'-film THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974, starring Peter Cushing). Slightly more ridiculous but also a lot more fun, that film's at least worth checking out. I'm not too sure about HOWLING V, though. I probably should be flunking this film, but I'll be forgiving in my final rating. If only for the fact that HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH is infinitely better than the series final installment, (Part 7) NEW MOON RISING. Part 7 tries to tie up loose ends between part 4 (THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE) and part 5 (THE REBIRTH), but writer/director/producer/actor Clive Turner turned it into an insufferable mess of a movie.

Basically this is the werewolf version of Ten Little Indians. A group of people end up stranded at a castle during a snowstorm and while they wait for it to end someone or something begins to pick them off one by one. With the howling and teeth marks on the bodies it points to one of them not being what they seem. This is actually a fairly descent Howling movie but it does have a small budget. I will give credit in the fact that they did well with what they had. The ending is also somewhat clever if you are not paying close attention throughout the movie. Overall not bad for what it is and is better than some of the other sequels.

Howling V is my favorite so far out of all the Howling movies. However, that doesn't mean this is a good film. The acting is pretty bad and the effects are absolutely horrid, but the plot is decent enough to make it tolerable. This one, the original Howling, and Howling IV are the only ones worth watching out of the first 5 flicks. The Howling series is really really bad. Only true horror fanatics would be interested in them at all. The only worse horror series i have encountered is the Children of the Corn series. Howling V is pretty predictible and the characters aren't killed off fast enough, so it moves kind of slowly. The music played after each death is annoying too. Recommended for Horror/Werewolf fans. Rating 4 of 10.

HOWLING V: THE REBIRTH (1989, 96 minutes) Shot in an actual Hungarian castle, the plot is borrowed from "The Beast Must Die" (1974) wherein a group of people spend the night in a huge European estate while one of the party, a werewolf, systematically butchers the guests. It's basically a whodunit a la Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." It's also reminiscent of the underrated "Devil's Nightmare" aka "The Devil Walks at Midnight" (1971), albeit not as good. Still, it comes close, and although the werewolf is barely seen I found this a solid low-budget mystery flick with a werewolf. Besides, Elizabeth Shé (Marylou) has an exceptional scene and there's a superb Gothic score. But gorehounds who want to see loads of bloody werewolf action should pass (there's a little, but not enough to appease modern gorehounds). GRADE: B-

A bunch of people are invited to this remote castle. As far as they know they have nothing in common with each other. Then they start getting murdered one by one--they can't escape the castle because of a huge blizzard outside--and one of them is the murderer...and a werewolf. Sort of like Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians". It's very atmospheric with some good acting and a real neat ending that got me by surprise. There's not a lot of blood and gore however and ALL the werewolf stuff is kept off screen (!!!). The budget on this film must have been tiny. Still I was entertained and enjoyed it. A neat little horror film--just don't expect it to be a "Howling" movie. I give it a 7.